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Projected WAR and Contract Values for Free Agent Position Players

Combining a couple of my previous article on UZR projections (now updated with UZR/150 values) and the wOBA to WAR conversion,  I have created a spreadsheet to project 2010 WAR values of most FA hitters and determine how much money should be spent for the player's production for a multi-year contract. 

Here are the 20 top projected free agent position players:

Rank Name 2010 Projected WAR Position UZR/150 OBP SLG PA
1 Matt Holliday 4.7 LF 5 0.376 0.510 646
2 Chone Figgins 3.0 3B 7 0.375 0.367 603
3 Adrian Beltre 2.9 3B 10 0.322 0.448 544
4 Joe Crede 2.6 3B 13 0.317 0.439 410
5 Troy Glaus 2.4 3B 2 0.351 0.436 461
6 Marco Scutaro 2.4 SS 1 0.362 0.376 511
7 Placido Polanco 2.3 2B 6 0.338 0.398 594
8 Jason Bay 2.3 LF -10 0.367 0.486 622
9 Miguel Tejada 2.1 SS -4 0.330 0.430 603
10 Mike Cameron 2.0 CF 5 0.321 0.420 582
11 Marlon Byrd 1.9 CF 0 0.335 0.433 513








13 Johnny Damon 1.8 LF 0 0.355 0.430 597
14 Felipe Lopez 1.7 2B 2 0.342 0.377 628
15 Nick Johnson 1.7 1B -1 0.395 0.407 552
16 Mark DeRosa 1.7 3B -1 0.335 0.416 543
17 Bengie Molina 1.6 C 0 0.288 0.421 486
18 Orlando Cabrera 1.5 SS 1 0.326 0.374 631
19 Coco Crisp 1.5 CF 3 0.342 0.386 430
20 Miguel Olivo 1.4 C 0 0.276 0.433 416

Instructions and assumption on using the spreadsheet after the jump.

Star-divide

Assumptions/Instructions

  • UZR/150 values were used.

  • Projected hitting values are from Chone's projected batting values.  I didn't need to have BA included, but I kept it there to make the cut and paste easier from Chones projections page.

  • To calculate the the wOBA, I used (1.66 * OBA + SLG)/3 = wOBA where the 1.66 from determining what multiple helped to predict the wOBA best for all qualified 2009 hitters.

  • I used 4.4 million dollars per WAR as the rate to paid for all years the player signs.  The user can feel free to change these values to what ever value they want.

  • Each player was projected to age by 0.5 WAR per year not matter what their age is currently.  Most are over the age of 31, so I don't see this as a problem.  If the user want to change these values in the cells, feel free.

  • To get the ideal contract value for the projected WAR, goto column Y on the spreadsheet.  Columns Y, Z and AA are the values projected for a 1 year contract in 2009 using the above assumptions.  These values continure for up to eight years.  For example, a 6 year contract for Matt Holliday would be worth 90.4 millions dollars according to the methods I used in the spreadsheet.

  • Players can be added and values changed as the user see fit.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

0 recs  |  Comment 20 comments |

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Comments

Display:

Are these park-neutral numbers?

I have a lot of trouble believing that Joe Crede is going to be basically as good of hitter as Beltre next year.

by lookatthosetwins on Nov 24, 2009 2:58 AM EST reply actions   0 recs

CHONE batting lines

The SLG and OBP are specific to the context I’m projecting the players to, though these are free agents, so all will be projected to a neutral environment anyway. I have linear weights runs on my pages (context neutral for all players), so I wonder why you don’t use those instead of the long route through a WOBA calculation, which you just have to convert back to runs anyway?

The HK-47 hitting droid is the finest line drive machine ever built

by RallyMonkey5 on Nov 24, 2009 11:59 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Awesome

So your projections for returning players will be affected by the ballpark their in, but the free agents are based on a neutral ballpark, correct?

by lookatthosetwins on Nov 24, 2009 12:42 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Which weights do you use?

If I plug in your numbers into the following equation:

(0.72xBB + 0.90×1B + 1.24×2B + 1.56×3B + 1.95xHR)/PA

I get results that are way too low.

In fact, for the free agents, I need to lower the league wOBA to .320 to make your R150 numbers work.

Can you tell me where I went wrong?

by paqs on Nov 30, 2009 9:20 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

I'll have to check

But if you’re trying to replicate, don’t waste time with the step of a WOBA calculation.

I’ll tell you the exact run weights for 1b, 2b, 3b, outs, etc.

The HK-47 hitting droid is the finest line drive machine ever built

by RallyMonkey5 on Nov 30, 2009 2:58 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Here be the weights

1b .47
2b .77
3b 1.02
hr 1.4
bb .33
hbp .33
ab-h -.28

Those weights will get you the R150 for free agents, and also come within a few runs of balancing out for the 2009 season.

The HK-47 hitting droid is the finest line drive machine ever built

by RallyMonkey5 on Nov 30, 2009 8:33 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

(sigh)

seems like just yesterday I was posting a massive spreadsheet w/ all the 2009 free agents

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by devil_fingers on Nov 24, 2009 9:34 AM EST reply actions   0 recs

Well, since you moved up in the world, us peons will be manning the FA spreadsheet front.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Nov 24, 2009 10:29 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

moved up?

I’m glad someone else is doing it… I did it manually for almost every FA at almost every positoin

I was going to do it this year, but now i"m relieved

I'm not a sabermetrician, but I do play one at FanGraphs.

Can't get enough of me? Check out my Twitter feed.

by devil_fingers on Nov 24, 2009 10:58 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

I need to look at the pitchers now.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Nov 24, 2009 11:11 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Some errors

John McDonald is not projected for a .416. I have him at .278/.335. Jose Molina’s projection is wrong too. These guys are terrible hitters and should not be on any top list, even with their excellent gloves.

The HK-47 hitting droid is the finest line drive machine ever built

by RallyMonkey5 on Nov 24, 2009 12:04 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

Looks like I got the McDonalds and Molina mixed up on the sheet.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Nov 24, 2009 12:17 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

Where does 410 projected PA for Crede come from?

He’s had 178, 367, and 373 PA over the past 3 years. Is this just a result of regression to the mean (for PA?)

by Alex Krolewski on Nov 25, 2009 9:47 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

You would have to ask Rally for sure to see

Bill James’s numbers on Fangraphs have him getting just over 300.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Nov 26, 2009 9:57 AM EST up reply actions   0 recs

I use 4 years of data for projections

And I don’t put any faith in the accuracy of playing time projections. Just something needed for presentation purposes.

The HK-47 hitting droid is the finest line drive machine ever built

by RallyMonkey5 on Nov 30, 2009 2:56 PM EST up reply actions   0 recs

I think you messed up with Ramon Castro

You have .266 OBP and .302 SLG. He is actually .304 OBP .429 SLG

"What was my greatest fear in the past is now upon us. Armed with their "advanced metrics" and clutching their spread sheets, the new-age baseball voters have officially taken over the sport" - Bryan Burwell

by EtSuKe on Nov 28, 2009 1:45 PM EST reply actions   0 recs

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